Tag

The mutual propaganda attacks mark a further deterioration of relations between the two Korean states that have engaged in no serious talks in recent months.

North Korea on Saturday demanded that the South halt anti-North propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers along the border or face military action, a day after it denied Seoul’s accusation that it planted landmines that wounded two South Korean soldiers.

Japan marked 70 years on Saturday since the end of World War Two but faced criticism from South Korea and China, which accused it of failing to properly atone for its actions during the war.

Hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides of the border guard the demilitarized zone that bisects the peninsula, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday, the day marking the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, sent a ritual offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japan’s war dead, including 14 Class-A convicted criminals of WWII.

But his remarks were an unusual addition to the short and highly ritualized statement that he delivers each year at the memorial ceremony. It was scary. As a young man I didn’t think I would die.

As part of Saturday’s war memorials, Emperor Akihito, the son of wartime Emperor Hirohito, will deliver a speech with Abe and other cabinet ministers present.

Abe, the grandson of a wartime cabinet minister, himself did not visit the shrine, which honours 14 Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal, along with millions of war dead.

North Korea threatened Saturday to attack its southern neighbor after activists launched helium balloons carrying anti-Pyongang leaflets.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe had the opportunity to continue along the same path as his predecessor, Tomiichi Murayama and apologize for Japan’s past aggression, however, those that had waited with bated breath for Abe’s statement on Friday, a day before the...

South Korea has ramped up border security in the wake of the blasts and – after a break of more than a decade – resumed the broadcast of propaganda messages into the North, using batteries of powerful loudspeakers set up at several sites along the border.

Around 1 000 protesters had gathered at the mission to push for reparations ahead of Saturday’s 70th anniversary of the end of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.

South Korean officials said on Monday North Korean intruders planted three land mines on the South Korea side of the demilitarized zone – including one that exploded last Tuesday injuring two soldiers.

South Korea has resume propoganda broadcasts across its border with the North, in retaliation for an alleged land mine attack.

(CNN) – The South Korean military has warned North Korea of a “harsh” response to landmine blasts that seriously wounded two South Korean soldiers last week in the demilitarized zone.